


морская соль

by iosis



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Background Victuuri - Freeform, First Kisses, M/M, Slow Burn, Victor who?, it's literally just their feelings and how they shift with time, long distance, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8936473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iosis/pseuds/iosis
Summary: (noun) - salt produced by the evaporation of seawater.their relationship, too, is a product; of many encounters, of multiple occurrences.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 'im just going to write a tiny small yoi drabble, 2-3k words max'

 

 

‘You remind me of the ocean, sometimes when you skate.’ Otabek tells him without looking at him, maximum attention on running his fingers through the sand. There’s a halo of grooves around him left on the cool, slightly moist surface.

‘The ocean?’ Yuri echoes, eyebrow cocked – he can’t say that’s a comparison he’s heard before.

They sit on the beach in Barcelona, the day before the Free Skate Program seals their fates, at least for this season. The tide has come in, the foaming peaks of waves rushing in to lap at their feet, but never quite reaching far enough. Behind them, the city is coming alive with lights, rearranging itself into its evening attire after a day of work. Ahead of them is eternity itself, though right now it looks like ordinary water, blue slowly turning black as the sun sets, horizon lost to dusk.  

‘Especially when you skate Agape. You have this…this air around you,’ Otabek clicks his fingers in the air a few times, searching for the right words. The clicks don’t turn out very good – his hands are probably stiff from all the time spent in the cold with his friend today, that’s why. 

‘Indulge me.’ Yuri urges him on. Something  strange has been happening ever since Otabek started telling him things about the way he saw him, Yuri. It’s not unlike a good workout, or a morning run, or a solid 30 minutes at the barre – heart quickening, hands heavy and cold and he wants to press them against his face to soothe the burning in his cheeks. Something must be wrong for this to happen with no physical exertion at all.

 ‘It’s a sight to behold.’ Otabek chuckles, and. Yeah, just like now. Better hope he’s not getting a cold right before the most important day of his life. ‘You look so soft at times. So graceful.’

Plisetsky shrugs. He gets that a lot. Graceful, feminine, angelic, fairy-like. They mean it as compliments, but he doesn’t pay them too much heed. If anything, that’s more down Lilia’s alley than his own – her draconian training regimes had been more than effective. They – the press, the fans, other skaters – think it endearing, in a naïve, childish way. Cute, they call him. They haven’t seen the relentless hours of work put into it, the ache in his hips and shoulders and ankles and the restless frustration in its wake.

He doesn’t mind soft, he doesn’t mind feminine, on the ice. He just wishes more people wouldn’t diminish it. That more people would see him like Otabek does.

‘See how the waves come rushing in?’ the Kazakh continues, both hands buried in the sand, eyes never leaving the sea. ‘How they never stop for anyone? One moment they caress the shore like it’s the most unconditional of loves – but when a storm comes, their wrath would tear it apart if it could. It’s ethereal beauty fortified with unbreakable strength and resilience. It’s deadly.’

Alright, hold up. That’s a) illegal and b) plain not fair how he can just say things like that with the most nonchalant of expressions, like he didn’t leave Yuri scowling at how his face is practically burning, how the same warmth resonates in his chest. 

‘Aren’t you a sap.’ He grasps for the only kind of defence he knows, though he regrets the snark of it almost instantly. Otabek is good with words. Otabek wanting to share his thoughts with him through words is important – appreciated, everything this boy says or does for him. It’s just that no one has ever told him that he’s ethereally beautiful and deadly like it was the most natural occurrence of things, ok?

‘I’ve always loved the sea.’ Otabek doesn’t seem to mind; he merely shrugs. Not to defend himself, not out of embarrassment – just telling it how it is.  ‘It’s so…’

‘Ethereal’ was a good word for it.’ Plisetsky helps out. He can’t say he’s spent a great amount of time contemplating the beauty of nature and whatnot, but he knows this much: there’s worlds within this one that are completely different, that run on other rules, other wavelengths. The ice is one of them. The ocean would be similar, no?  

He stares at it, swaying and solid and cold.

The cold is tangible in the air, too – Otabek’s hands must truly be frozen by now, and Yuri briefly wonders what they would feel like pressed against his cheeks. Symbiotic thermal exchange, huh. What the fuck.

‘Did you grow up at a beach or something?’ If he just keeps talking it might keep all these weird thoughts at bay.

‘Yura,’ Otabek blinks up at him, expression unreadable- except there’s that glint in his eyes that he’ll later learn to recognise as purehearted amusement. ‘Kazakhstan is _landlocked_.’

‘Well, how the hell am I meant to know that?’ the boy huffs, taking a half-hearted swat at him, sand flying. ‘Basic  knowledge of geography aside,’ muttered under his breath.

‘I’m wounded,’ Otabek says, and then his body moves and the side of his head connects with Yuri’s shoulder, leaving a spark of warmth at the point of contact, except then it returns to normal and he’s left to process the situation. 

He headbutted him. He headbutted him and it takes Plisetsky a moment to register that now he’s laughing.

‘What the fuck.’ Otabek is so _weird_. What’s even weirder is that he’s smiling now, pressure easing, replaced with a lightness as though he was soaring through the air in a jump, both arms raised. 

An appropriate response to this, of course, is to headbutt him back, but something somewhere between his intent and his body gets jumbled up – instead he’s left like that, forehead tucked against Otabek’s shoulder, the closeness completely unfamiliar.

If Otabek thinks this is somehow odd or uncomfortable, he doesn’t say anything, just draws a bit closer. Just pulls the side of his jacket over Plisetsky’s shoulder – it’s getting colder and colder as night comes.    

‘There was something, though,’ the older boy continues and Yuri feels it in the vibration of his chest. ‘Do you know where Kapshagay is?’

‘Haven’t I just shown how on point my geographic awareness is?’

That earns him another soft chuckle against his hair.

‘It’s only a small town, I wouldn’t expect you to. Anyway, there’s a catchment there. Pretty deep, and the water’s clean – there’s even real waves when it gets windy. Nothing compared to the real thing, but I didn’t know that when I was little. I went there every summer whenever training was suspended…’    

 _Yuri_ , for one, doesn’t think it’s odd or uncomfortable – only surprising how easily this foreign comfort comes to him, how leaning on someone’s shoulder and listening to stories about their childhood could feel so natural, so far from the irritation anyone else brought with them, Mila, Leroy, Katsudon with fucking Nikiforov  in tow – his mood almost turns sour at the reminder. Almost.

 

Maybe it was quite ordinary for friends to sit like this, huddled up together, watching one light after another bloom in the reflection of the sea. Their shoulders touch as they search for lights of a different kind, for all the stars amongst the clouds.

(Otabek finds 5, Yuri only finds 3.

Losing has never felt _nice_ before.  )

 

 

 

The bronze medal is an unbearable weight around his neck. It threatens to drag him down, to suffocate him entirely. It hurts, physically hurts, as if the ribbon is melting into his skin, but he’got no choice but to bear it, no one to blame but himself. Especially after the vantage he had with his short programme. Especially after Katsudon _flopped,_ nothing more than collapsing to a fourth, sobbing right there on the ice, looking at Victor like this was goodbye. It’s a scary thing, skate for someone else only. Maybe once he calms down a bit he can rationalise this, can even be happy that Yuuri somehow managed to overcome this dependence, to pull through with the most stellar performance that made up for dropping below 100 points the other day.

He can’t even say the pig didn’t _deserve_ gold – Yuuri fought for it, clawed for it through blood and tears. Which is why he’s there now, celebrating with everyone, interviews and laughter and the clinking of glasses. Who knows, maybe the high of winning will finally jump-start his brain, and it won’t be too late to talk shit out with Victor.

He’s not mad at him as per se, which is. Surprising. Maybe Yakov is right, maybe he is growing up – but that doesn’t mean it won’t tear at his ribcage and leave him chewing at his lip till it bled.

The newly-set world record (Victor who?), the ‘Brilliant Senior Debut’ (thanks, journalists – if only that meant shit). The way Victor seemed to undergo an overnight transform from ‘irl protagonist of a sappy gross romcom’ to a feeble reflection on that same ice that bound them all (ok but really, Katsudon, you’re _adults_ for fuck’s sake, t a l k...) –  Nothing can be made to work as consolation.

Yuri Plisetsky doesn’t need consolations. He just needs to calm down, to wear this with grace, to…

 

When Otabek finds him in the empty changeroom and wraps his arms around him, the ribbon of the Kazakh’s own silver medal rubs against his cheek. He should be mad at him, too, robbing him of at least a second place, but for some reason he isn’t – if anything, deep down beneath the hurt it makes something swell with pride.

 Otabek smells of sweat and sand and hidden strength, and Yuri clings to that, buries his head in his chest. He, Yuri, is the heart of the ocean that he’s only seen a handful of times; he is the crashing of waves, the sea’s breaking point. When they roll back, it’s only to rage against the shore with newfound power.

‘Yura,’ He feels Otabek exhale more than he hears it. ‘Yura, I’m proud. No, let me finish, don’t say anything. Just. Know that I’m proud of you.’

He is deadly.  

 

 

 

When the next season comes, Yuri drops down twice – at the very first local tournament of the year, where he botches a fucking quad – and at the Worlds finals. They’re a very insignificant streak of silver in his collection of gold.

 

 

Otabek is useless when it comes to social media. Insta? Snapchat? Twitter? Line? Skype, at the very least?  How does he manage to stay in the loop with _anything?_ Even his Facebook gets updated once in a blue moon, a statistic from a competition or a group photo with his rinkmates. It takes Yuri a month of convincing and sulking for Otabek to get the latter two, but hey, he’s _good_ at that, so now messaging and videocalls are pretty easy. He’s got to give some as well – getting used to screenshotting every Snapchat of himself and then having to sending it to Altyn separately; copy-pasting his Insta link whenever that’s updated.  

He really should be more appreciative of social media – it’s a true lifesaver when you don’t get to see each other in real life more than for a couple of days in foreign cities and towns, and even then you come as rivals. Training sessions, practice, ballet, training again – it takes its toll, and on his reluctant days off Yuri is way too exhausted and out of it to consider flying somewhere and back for 2 days max – not to mention the costs. Inflation, my ass. Hopefully Deda is going ok.

  
On the days off that align with Otabek’s, they’re working hard for that ‘Longest Skype Call In History Of Mankind’ record. He keeps the call on when he does his distance-ed homework stuff, when he does stretches, when he listens to music – sometimes his own, sometimes it’s Otabek playing something through the speakers for him. When he’s cocooned in his sheets and the digital dial on his bedside blinks 2 am and it really needs to Not because they’ve still got so much to tell each other.

 

It’s a curious process, getting to know someone. How they learn each other’s hobbies, favourite foods (Otabek is yet to know the wonder of katsudon pirozhki. He’ll work on a pork-less recipe. Maybe chicken would do.) How Otabek sprawls himself all over the bed when he sleeps, while Yuri curls up on himself (‘Maybe you _are_ an actual cat…’‘I don’t even remember falling asleep!!!’)

How ‘Otabek’ becomes ‘Beka’, the word soft and pliant in his mouth. How ‘Yurochka’ isn’t really _that_ embarrassing of a nickname, especially when a certain Kazakh whispers it goodnight, voice rough and sleepy, and luckily it’s too dark for his friend to notice how he instantly flushes.

Right. Friend.   

 

Friend.

 

They watch movies through screenshare , laggy and low-res, and the audio stutters or plays at different times for most of it.

‘This would be so much easier if you were in Almaty with me,’ the corners of Otabek’s mouth crinkle upward, the tiniest half-smile that Yuri has learnt to recognise where others deem him unapproachable. Only then does he realise that he’s been watching the latest Star Trek film through the way its different colours reflect on Otabek’s face, eyes never leaving the curve of his jaw and his messy, uncombed hair that live in the the mini-icon of the webcam. 

He’s _fucked_. 

 

 

Plisetsky makes him an Instagram account when he flies to St. Petersburg for a week.

 This is all after Otabek gets 2 days off just after New Years break. Well, isn’t someone lucky!

‘Wanna swap coaches for a while?’ Yuri jokes over the phone when he tells him. He doesn’t mean it, of course – practice is getting better and getting better is everything.; besides Yakov has just finished designing a new training routine that he’s been working on with some important bloke from England – all for Yuri specifically.

‘Wishing for a break? You?’ The slightly frayed and pixelated Otabek on his phone screen raises and eyebrow.

‘You wish.’ He snorts in response. ‘Just don’t want you being too out of shape for the Regionals. I need some actual competition in there.’

‘And if I win anyway?’ his eyes narrow just a little bit, and for a second Yuri isn’t sure if he’s joking around or not.

‘Hmmm, let’s see.’ Yuri rubs at his chin, as if he was lost deep in though. ‘Probably spend a few hours sulking and pretending I’m not proud of you and you didn’t do well. Then you’ll drag me off to get dinner and treat me to desert so I stop bitching and we’ll talk and you’ll tell me everything and then we’ll stay there until they close and we’re kicked out and have to make our way back to the hotel on foot because no trains run at that hour. Don’t forget selfies, of course.’

He speaks from experience. 

‘I could rent a bike again – then we won’t have to walk.’

‘Yakov would probably murder me if he imagines me on a bike this close to all the comps, let alone sees me.’ Something about wringing his neck in reckless stunts or breaking his legs in a crash.

‘Would it matter?’ the FaceTime feed stutters for a second, freezing just as Otabek asks.

‘It’d be worth it.’

Wishful thinking’s a bitch, he decides.

 

Except a week later Otabek is sitting on his fucking stairwell, flesh and blood and a lot of jackets layered one over another. He looks good in layers. His face is tucked into his scarf; his cheek rests against his suitcase, and overall he makes an impression of a guy that’s been sitting out there on the dirty cold concrete for a long time.

_what the actual fuck is this guy for real_

Yuri needs to punch himself to make sure he’s not hallucinating. Actually, he can punch Otabek instead. Or even better, can hurl his entire weight at the boy, barely giving him time to stand up, to welcome his smaller frame into his and sweep him off his feet – literally, picking him off the ground and spinning him all around  the narrow landing.

 ‘No call, no message, no sneaky hints, zero, zero fucking warning, you hear me?’ Yuri yells into his shoulder, but the words really mean ‘I missed you, I’m so fucking glad to see you again’ and he’s smiling, smiling so damn much now that he knows that he has not in fact been transplanted into some phantasmagorical New Year fairytale. The Otabek on his doorstep is real, and warm, and to top it off will be staying with him for the week.

‘I would have picked you up from the airport.’ Yuri grumbles once it’s time to free the Kazakh from his death grasp. ‘Deda is probably at home, he’d have let you in! At least go to the rink next time you pull something like this off!’

‘I didn’t want to intrude,’ Otabek protests. ‘Besides, I only knew the house and the floor, not your actual flat number…’ – But the blond is no longer listening, too busy wrestling his suitcase towards the right door, hurrying to get his unexpected guest inside. He urgently needs to rectify the 2 hours spent in a freezing hallway with hot briar tea, to show him Atos, whose royal feline majesty Otabek has only witnessed on his Instagram. And of course, to introduce him to Ded Nikolai – introduce him as his best friend, his bestest and friendest friend, and come on, Beka, what’s taking you so long?

‘You’re forgetting something,’ Beka smirks, and his foot nudges at a lump of material Yuri doesn’t remember being on the staircase. The contents of Yuri’s own bag – training skates and towels and empty water bottles – lie where they’ve tumbled out when he dropped it, completely forgotten.      

 

 

Nikolay Plisetski is a little bit vary of Otabek at first – or perhaps ‘surprised’ is a better word for it – either way he’s quick to warm up to him. Turns out, Otabek is actually really good at not seeming unapproachable when he wants to be – his manners are impeccable, and he’s a good talker. Evening tea for defrosting purposes flows to a conversation deep into the night.

Atos, on the other hand, is delighted. He’s always loved attention – and a new set of hands to deliver pats and ear scratches is very exciting. Otabek’s very first Instagram post features the beautiful Siamese curled up in his lap, paw tapping at his wrist as though demanding to keep the affection coming.

He’s in his sweatpants and tshirt, and theoretically they’re both ready for bed. The only spare mattress in the house is an inflatable queen-size  - once spread out in Yuri’s room, it takes up most of the floor. There’s literally no way to get through to his own bed without having to step on it – which is why Yuri, too, is borderline curled up into Otabek’s side, peering up over his arms to ensure Beka knows how to choose a good filter, and how hashtags really work. The scent of his own shower gel lingering on his skin, the faintest pine of his laundry powder – Otabek being part of the combination is oddly satisfying.

Yuri’s so, so warm and comfortable – that’s a good enough excuse to stay there as they talk – about skating, about their distance ed programmes, about Otabek’s flight, Yakov’s new program – anything at all, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

 

Perhaps the following week is a colourful fairytale after all, a kaleidoscope of Christmas lights and reflections of their old TV as the three of them sit in their tiny living room dressed in dusk. All the little coffee shops Yuri shows him; little refuges of warmth and aromatic freshly-ground coffee amongst the best winter he’s had for years; their days practicing at the rink. Turns out, Yakov remembers Otabek from the training camp – and Yuri flushes with embarrassment because if Feltsman remembers him out of the hundreds he’s trained, then _he_ ’s got no excuse. He’s welcome to skate with them for the week – with a begrudging ‘As long as you still turns up to the studio 8am sharp.’ Yuri shows him his new step sequence and the awe on his face is worth more than a thousand ‘Well done’s from Lilia.

Otabek feeds Atos in the mornings when Yuri is too slow to crawl out of his blanket nest; Yuri makes coffee for two and sets the kettle again for Deda. They shop for groceries together when the lift breaks – they’re on the 7th floor, technology is wonderful, Russian maintenance services are fantastic – and Otabek helps hurl the bags up the stairs, muttering something about getting his workout. They gather around the waning fir tree one last time for the New Year’s eve of the Old Calendar, and in the morning Otabek gets a repeat workout taking it out to the street.

 

They sit out on the balcony, and Yura wishes it was summer so that they could hold their hands to the sun and pretend to catch the rays reflected off rooftops; so that the skies above would be clear, not held together by biting fog. And then he wishes that Otabek wouldn’t have to leave tomorrow. That he’d stay here for longer, hell, forever if he has to – there’s still so much left to show him. Alternatively, it would be nice to not have his heart race from as little as looking at him for too long, to experience every single event in his life without thinking ‘wait till I tell Beka about this’; to see the familiar icon light up no his phone and his day is instantly made.

His days would have been dull, like the banks of Neva in winter, but at least he wouldn’t have to say goodbyes.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he says instead, leaning over the railing, deliberately not meeting his eye. It had snowed earlier – the street below is dyed in white. ‘You’re…’ unthinkable, unsayable, words frozen in his mouth, unspoken boundaries etched in ice. ‘You’re such a good friend, Bek.’  

‘I should be the one thanking you.’ Beside him, Otabek sighs into the grey sky. Yuri’s gloved hand trembles in his, but it’s all just the cold.    

 

Tomorrow comes, and saying goodbye hasn’t gotten any easier.

_‘This is a pre-boarding announcement for flight 74 L, Pulkovo – Almaty. Passengers for Flight 74 L, please proceed towards Gate 3’_

Warm hands cup the sides of his face, and he probably would be engulfed in flames inside and out, had the anxiety of separation not been twisting in his stomach since morning.

‘I’ll write to you,’ Otabek promises. Idiot. As if Yura would let him do otherwise; what’s that supposed to mean if they call each other every day, anyway? He doesn’t say that out loud – instead, he closes the distance between them and cranes his neck forward until his forehead touches the spot where Otabek’s collarbones come together beneath the scratchy wool of his scarf. His final growth sprout is just about making itself known so he has to lean further forwards to reach – it’s a bit uncomfortable but frankly he doesn’t give a shit. The fabric tickles his nose and makes his eyes water – that must be it.

Fingers thread through his hair, massaging his scalp lightly, as if trying to soothe the pain away. For some reason he doesn’t feel weak for letting the pain creep up on him in the first place.

‘I’ll miss you.’ He breathes, and the arms around him tighten just for a second, as if trying to grasp at time and make it stand still. As if the weight of them, warm and heavy and fucking _homely,_ could ground them in this moment for ever. 

 

Afterwards, Yuri takes a detour and spends a lot of time pacing up and down Smolnaya, fumes from the highway, wet fog over the frozen bank. He stalls until his hands are frozen and his stomach reminds him that he’s been running on nothing but caffeine since morning. At home, there’s warmth seeping off the radiators and Atos curled up on the windowsill and Deda’s pirogki, but he doesn’t want to find out just how empty has the flat become.

 

 

 

Victor Nikiforov needs to get off his high horse because he’s only made two positive contributions to Yuri’s existence. The first was three years ago, when he hadn’t thought twice about breaking his idiotic promise, running off to Japan to his stupid Katsudon and leaving a nauseating sediment of frustration, defeat and all other shades of not being good enough. It’s what gives Yuri the strength to reforge himself into something bigger, stronger, world records and victories and breaths taken with ease.

The second is when he argues with Yakov over the phone, leaving him with a 80 minute hike in the phone bill, and finally the permission to squeeze three weeks! Three! of free time  while  their rink is closed for maintenance. This is all after his most recent visit over from Japan, when he pulls him aside in the lobby and recites him a long and tedious lecture of how important it is to follow your heart and seize your opportunities and put your feelings into words.

‘Yurochka, you’re not even listening!’ Nikiforov clutches at his heart, seeping melodrama, as though his ravings were about something actually important. He _also_ needs to get off his high horse because he’s decidedly lost his fucking mind. That, or he’s plotting something, Yuri would think, if he wasn’t busy formulating a plan of his own – probably unrealistic, but twinged with happiness nonetheless.

He tells Otabek in the evening, and the Kazakh smiles, not a spark in his eyes or a subtle tug of his lips –  a genuine grin that transforms his entire face, all teeth and anticipation and the physically sickening longing that burrows deep somewhere behind Yuri’s solar plexus.

   

 

He flies out for Almaty a week later. Ok so he’s not good at being spontaneous like Otabek is, they can work around that. Even if he tried to make it a surprise he wouldn’t be able to, with how he doesn’t stop texting him until it’s phones off, and resumes again as soon as they land.

Altyn greets him as soon as he passes the terminal, arms wide open, and he’s flying into him before his brain can catch up. It’s a little bit awkward – he feels he’s grown in the past 6 months more than in his entire life, which is, well. False, but he’s almost a head taller than Otabek now, so instead of fitting into his frame like he’s done for the past couple of years he ends up with long limbs draped all over the place, his cheek rubbing against the slightest hint of stubble.

‘Look at that.’ Otabek breathes once they finally pull apart, and Yuri doesn’t have to look up to meet his eye anymore. It’s endearing. He looks different from a slightly higher angle – and his undercut is blended it more than he remembers, but there’s so much of that goddamn _warmth_ in his eyes. ‘You really have grown.’

‘Couldn’t let you be taller forever, could I?’ He tries to be smug but the unadulterated joy refuses to be contained.

‘Yura.’ 

Yuri doesn’t say anything, only pulls him into another strangely-fitted hug, oblivious to his luggage, to the traffic of people that they’re kinda in the way of. Stop staring, you can walk around, it won’t kill you. Let him be alone with this relief for a little longer.

 

There’s _warmth_ outside, too – scorching heat, to be more exact. Sure, Piter gets fairly hot sometimes, but here it’s different – clear and dry, his skin absorbing the sun and letting it pour though his bloodstream. The shabby bus (read: actual human microwave) they get from the airport isn’t even air conditioned. He’d pay attention to the city, to the buildings old and new, to all the street vendours and colourful shops, but all he needs right now is to get out of the sun. Otabek’s flat is such a nice comparison, curtains drawn, the gentle drone of a fan in the background. His kitchen counter is lined in potted plants; his bedroom door is jammed open and there’s a curtain mounted right above.

Altyn ushers him into the shower first thing, fresh towel and shirt at the ready. Yuri has packed enough shirts of his own, thank you very much – but he reasons he’ll unpack properly after he’s not in actual hellfire anymore. The fabric is soft and cool against his heated skin – he can live with this.

‘I’ve made you an actual bed, but that was before the heatwave happened.’ Otabek rubs at the base of his neck, somewhat apologetic. He’s wearing a singlet  - must’ve changed while he was in the shower – and the way his muscles move beneath his skin is painfully obvious even across the entire room. ‘I highly recommend sleeping on the floor.’

‘Payback for when you came to Piter?’ Yuri smirks.

‘It’s just a lot easier to deal with the heat at night. I do that same thing.’

Otabek’s room is too small to lay out two mattresses on the woven carpet – instead, he stays in the study. It has a funny-smelling plant – anise, apparently – and a large window from ceiling to floor. It becomes his saving grace – the fan doesn’t do much for the bedrooms, and the heat doesn’t recede even overnight. The only tiny downside is the memory of manoeuvring the two of them around a shaky mattress in his room, of falling asleep to the weight of another body by his side, and how this is. Well. Not the same.

To be fair, it’s not like they don’t spend almost every moment of the waking period alongside one another as is. When Yura was little, summer holidays never meant family vacations or adventures on the street – just hotter, stuffier conditions to train in, and higher fees for the indoor rink. He figures it’s not too late to start.

Otabek takes him everywhere – like, literally. His skate rink, currently lined with scaffolding; the primary school he went to, the abandoned lot where he buried a stray cat that died on his lap when he was 7. Old blocks from the soviet times and flashy new complexes with their shopping malls and cinemas; the Central Mosque that would always wake Yuri up at ungodly hours with the first morning rite – and the orthodox domes in Panfilovets’ Park. He knows Almaty almost as well as Plisetsky knows Piter, if not better. Sometimes they go on foot – sometimes the motorbike makes a repeat appearance, and Yuri’s left to hold on for dear life as they dodge the blurring lights of bigger, slower cars around them, or as Otabek makes his way downtown, shabby concrete and dirt paths between weathered apartment blocks, where no other vehicle would fit.

One evening they ride to the countryside just so that Yuri can see the sunset, distant mountain peaks reflecting all shades of red to burgundy to purple as the rarest clouds seem to be aflame. He ropes Beka into taking selfies with him, cheeks pressed together, a rare shot of him smiling, for once.   

Plisetsky’s ‘tagged in’ catalogue  is growing daily  – Yuri petting a lizard at the zoo, Yuri on one of those carousels that go up high, legs dangling in the air. Yuri frowning at a milkshake in the icecream bar that used to be fantastic until they changed the management. Otabek’s Instagram is slowly becoming an ode to their time spent together, and the boy can’t help but think what it looks like to everyone else. Whether Otabek minds.  

It occurs to him that uh. Maybe friendship isn’t usually made of holding hands as they stroll down the open market in the evening, or of braiding tiny clusters of lilac into his hair – hell, braiding his hair alone is probably a bit off the ‘best friends’ spectrum – leaning against Otabek’s chest as he whispers something in a foreign language at him, fingers working through the hair that’s gotten so damn long already. Or of lying on the couch together as they watch shit on TV, sweaty limbs tangled even though there’s a perfectly good armchair nearby. It’s not like he’d know otherwise, him and all his previous friendship experience, but surely Otabek would?

Sometimes he thinks he should ask – but the moment he does, this- this something, vibrant, full of warmth and laughter might slip, disintegrating in the mysterious evening air.

Yuri asks nothing. 

 

  

On the ninth day of his stay they go on an adventure.

Yeah, perhaps he’s too old to deem daytrips on a motorbike actual adventures, but it’s exciting, ok, especially if he doesn’t know it’s coming. Otabek doesn’t even tell him where they’re going - one moment he presents the innocent question of what his plans for the day are, and the next leaves Yuri fumbling to catch the helmet that’s been tossed straight at him like some malformed metallic beach ball.  

In retrospect, coming from anyone else, the gesture would have seemed brash, dismissive. We’re going, right now, and you don’t get a say in this – it would have infuriated him, were he still 15, but there’s a mischievous sparkle in Otabek’s eyes and he’s so up for whatever it implies.

He’s planned this as if he k _nows_ that Yuri doesn’t mind in the slightest, that Yuri is happy to speed off to the edge of the fucking world as long as he gets to do it perched up on the back of this particular motorbike, fringe swept into his eyes, arms tight around this very particular waist as if Otabek was his only anchor to reality.

 

It takes two hours to get to where they’re going – well, two hours from when Almaty’s skyline fades, and till new forms of civilisation materialise in the steppe ahead.  

The sun is a merciless brand on his back – isn’t he glad they went way before midday, so it’s not the worst of it? The black leather of Otabek’s jacket is hot beneath his cheek, hot and soft and woven entirely out of a scent he’s reluctantly come to recognise as familiar, welcoming. If he presses closer, he can feel the contour of his body, everything so fucking solid and living and filling him with something that sets his cheeks aflame and twists in his stomach.

The wind on his face is a stark contrast to it all, a welcome torrent of cold air amplified by their movement. It tears at his jacket, demanding to cool off the rest of him; makes his hair dance in the wind. Makes him unstoppable as long as Otabek keeps on speeding them on –  if only for two hours.  

 They pass a petrol station that looks like something out of a zombie film; a colourful billboard, then another. Then there is a sign, faded and slightly bent – ‘Welcome to Kapshagay.’

 

_‘It’s only a small town, I wouldn’t expect you to’_

They bypass the town itself, sticking to a country road that winds through _dachi_ lots and older settlements, rows and rows of wooden houses, flower beds and greenhouses. There’s even a few open paddocks. It’s nostalgic, somehow, though he had always grown up in the city. Maybe all the stories Deda would tell him, about his countryside youth, about building a _dacha_ with his grandmother from scratch – had become pieces of his own memory somewhere down the track.

He doesn’t get to dwell on it a lot – soon, the road becomes narrower, sandier, and the landscape slips further and further into reeds and windswept dunes.

 

_Is this where you’re taking me?_

 

When they finally come to a stop – an empty parking lot, a rusty bike rack a little bit further up – they’re entirely on sand, and he has to tuck his head against Otabek’s back so that his eyes might survive.

‘I know this place.’ His voice is quiet, almost lost in the rustling of coastal grass around them.

‘You said you’ve never been here,’ Otabek frowns.

‘But you’ve told me, so I know _of_ it.’ He struggles to untangle his hair from the helmet. Only once he’s dismounted does he get a proper look at the unfamiliar surroundings.

‘That being said, I think I might recall you mentioning a beach?’ Yuri raises an eyebrow at the sight before them, the narrow strip of dirty brown sand, the yellowed reeds that come dangerously close to the water. There’s a makeshift fence splitting the beach in half, disappearing where the smallest of waves lap at it, as well as a few suspicious-looking pipes creeping underwater. It’s completely deserted, not even a tent or towel in sight, although on the other side of the fence there’s… Jesus fucking Christ are those actual cows grazing in the shallows? ‘What kind of _derevnya_ is this?’ 

Altyn laughs at that, a deep rumble in his chest. He doesn’t dismount just yet, elbows resting on the bars, eyes fixed on the horizon. His own helmet clatters to the ground. 

‘Everything’s changed, huh…We used to come down this way as kids.’ He runs his fingers through the tangle of his fringe, swept out of shape by the wind and flattened by the helmet, smoothing it back. Yuri definitely doesn’t pay extra attention to the gesture, or to the way the sweat glistens on his skin, or –

He must’ve caught his eyes on him, for Otabek falters, tiny creases of uncertainty creeping into his expression as he holds his gaze.

‘It’s gotten pretty bad…Maybe we could go somewhere else,’, and yeah admittedly this is hardly compatible to the azure eternity in Barecelona, or  the way Hasetsu left his lungs stained in bitter salt for months afterwards but that’s not what Plisetsky has meant at all.

 ‘I know they’ve built a few resorts a little bit further out, that’s where everyone seems to go nowdays.’ Otabek doesn’t stop talking. ‘We’ll go there instead?  It looks much better than this in photographs.’

  His friend’s already reaching for his chest pocket where his phone is tucked into the leather – no doubt to whip out a map or a set of directions to some overpriced resort or crowded tanning ground with a complimentary body of water on the side.   

‘Idiot.’ Yuri interrupts, lightly pushing past him – he needs to get off that damn bike already – Yuri’s not gonna bother waiting on him.

His elbow connects with Otabek’s shoulder, a playful shove if anything as he moves past. He’s definitely taller than him now, even without the bike; long limbs and narrow bones. It took a while to get used to, the changes to his body, the way everything stretched and aligned differently when he skated, when he danced. Adjusting to a different kind of grace as his natural flexibility was beginning to remind him of the general untrustworthiness and permeability of things in life; working harder than before, pushing himself past the limits he hadn’t previously known existed. It was worth the battle – this year it’s his very first Olympic gold, testimony to his victories along countless other triumphs – but a tiring one, leaving his joints aching, leaving his feet torn to shreds and covered in blisters.

They’ve healed up now, offseason. It’s actually kinda nice, kicking off his worn keds and feeling the sand beneath his feet, warmth against calloused skin. Warmth however quickly turns into ‘uh uh fuck I might be stepping onto actual lava right now’ – It’s absorbed all that sun, after all, so every step burns, and he doesn’t hesitate to seek refuge closer to the water. Behind him, he can hear Otabek dismounting.

 

He’s got his swimming trunks on beneath all the skin-tight denim (a mistake, especially in this weather), but he doesn’t feel like swimming – the pipes, the cows, the murky colour don’t herald much trust. Wading in so he’s about knee-deep seems fine though. The water is very ordinary – cool, refreshing, and Otabek wasn’t lying all these years ago when he said about the little pseudo-waves lapping at his thighs.

Let Altyn take his sweet time doing god knows what with the bike – let him, Yuri, wade through his memory, through his childhood. There’s nothing extraordinary to behold, just a bottom-end-of-mediocre beach that has been long abandoned by tourist masses, has been reclaimed and grown over by the dunes – yet something about it is haunting, like he’s stepped into a world standing still in time. Someone else’s time.

 

 That is, until there’s a splash directly behind him, and the sudden explosion of droplets against his skin makes him flinch. Beside him, Otabek send ripples in his wake as he approaches.

‘Did you just _splash_ me?’ His voice is brimming with suspense, but it’s hard not to laugh.

‘Maybe? Only by accident, though. Wait, Yura, Yu –‘

He never gets to finish the thought.

‘Accident, my ass,’ Yuri mutters over all the splashing around as Otabek tries and fails to regain his balance. He’s too busy scowling and _not laughing_ to keep his guard up when Altyn retaliates the attack. There’s a bit of sky, then a bit of shore, and then it’s Yuri’s turn to splash and splutter, shivering at the unexpected contact with the water. It’s not long until they become nothing but a tangle of limbs, ducking into the water and resurfacing, all laughter and curses and wet, slippery skin.

So much for not swimming.

 

 

Later, when they’re completely drenched and exhausted, chilled by the water to the point where the heat is no longer unwelcome, they collapse right onto the sand, shoulders touching, still wet from earlier. Upon closer inspection, the sand is not dirty – it’s made up of tiny grey pebbles, eroded to grains so thin some of them shimmer transparent in his hand.

Gnawing _something_ in his chest or not, Beka is objectively the best – he’s packed fruit, and sandwiches and kvas that somehow managed to stay cool for all this time. Turns out while Yuri was preoccupied with his naval explorations, Otabek was unclipping the bike bag and dragging it to where they sit now, the basket of food in front of them rapidly growing emptier. It’s offseason, Yuri reasons, pouring himself more kvas from the thermos. He’s allowed to.

 Allowed to steal glances at him as they sit in comfortable silence afterwards – gentle, like the roll of water against the bank.    

 

 ‘It’s going to rain tonight.’ Otabek speaks up eventually.  

‘What makes you say that?’ He, for one, doesn’t fancy a two hour ride back in pouring rain. His poor jeans have suffered enough – they’re drying on the sand nearby.  

‘Look there.’ Altyn extends his hand towards the horizon, except there isn’t a clear definition between water and sky, the boundary lost in a dull lilac haze.

‘There isn’t anything,’ Yura furrows his brow. He strains his eyes to make something out in the cloudy mist. On the edge of his vision he can see Otabek resting his head on his arm, watching him, shamelessly taking all of him in, expression something between amusement and endearment. It becomes increasingly difficult to look anywhere but back at him.    

‘Exactly.’ Otabek finally nods, and loose stands of hair brush against Yura’s cheek.

‘That means there’s a storm coming from over the mountains. Usually you can see the peaks from here, and the ports on the other side – it’s not all that big of a catchment as it seems. You know something’s coming if it clouds over like this.’

‘Yeah?’ Yuri finally turns to face him. Up this close, he can see stray droplets of water still drying on Otabek’s face, can see the little cracks on the full curve of his lips, left by the sun and the hot, sand-filled wind. Back in the airport, Lilia literally stood over his shoulder as he begrudgingly shoved a little tube of lip balm deep into his travel bag. _He,_ of course, would never use it for himself, but perhaps it could come in useful after all, once they got home. Right now though the silence hangs too long, and his thoughts slow down and come to a halt until all is left is Otabek just looking at him like that, as though his very soul with all its turmoils and most-likely-unwelcome deviations from the term ‘friendship’ is reflected right back at him in those pools of amber.  

‘And what’s the accuracy rate of that?’ he finally musters, hoping it came out at least a tiny bit sarcastic. Snark is good, he’s used to snark. It’s the easiest thing to shield behind.     

Otabek blinks at him, and when he continues his voice is dreamy, laced with nostalgia.

‘Almost perfect, actually. When we were younger, everyone would start leaving when the clouds came, but we’d stick around well into the storm. Whenever the wind started, there would be bigger waves – nothing like a real ocean, of course, but we were small, and they’d tower above us. They seemed real enough. My _aje_ would always scold me when we’d come home afterwards, wet and covered in sand and exhausted. ’

‘Sounds like it was worth it, though.’

‘Yeah.’ Otabek holds his gaze. ‘It was.’

They’ve made the right choice coming here, Yuri thinks. Is this what déjà vu feels like? Watching the sea lap at the horizon – who cares if it’s artificial or not. Otabek laying his memory open for him, something warm and homely rolling off him in waves, a past comfort that wasn’t his, but flowed through him like something real nonetheless. Something tangible.

Something unfathomable, unconditional. Maybe kind of like all that Agape bullshit that got him his first world record all these years ago – but bigger, threatening to overflow through him any moment.           

‘We should probably head back soon,’ Otabek says then, and just like that the warmth disappears, as though the storm had already started.

He’s right, it’s time to head back. They’ll drive to Almaty, and wish each other goodnight, and go to sleep in different rooms until the sun comes up and this day would be gone, disintegrated in nothing but memory. Then Saturday will come, and they won’t speak about it; and that would mark the halfway point of his stay. He’d only have a week left, and then it’s back to kilometres and cities and a cold absence to fill the space from call to call, from message to message.  

Practice, competition, strain and stress and all the battles they fought – all the battles that wouldn’t leave room for slick tanned skin and coarse sand and now-lukewarm kvas and this degree of carefree.   You’d never feel like this again, after you leave, he tells himself. Time will pass, and this, too, will become a memory, a ghost beach somewhere in his mind. Almaty, a ghost town; the weight of Otabek’s eyes on him something faded entirely.

 _‘It’s best to regret something than regret not acting out on it. Grasp onto your chances and don’t let them go,_ ’ Victor’s voice echoes in his head, and listen, that’s the very last fucking thing he needs.     

Goddamn it all.

He wants more, for fuck’s sake, wants something more than a memory. Needs, even, urgency overtaking reason. His body is not his, muscles driven by something alien, shifting until he’s kneeling in front of Otabek, hands lowering onto his shoulders. He wills them to stop shaking.

‘Yuri?’ Otabek’s own hands are held out in the air between them, as if he’s unsure what to do with them, whether they belong in the sand or on his lap or somewhere on the boy before him. From where Plisetsky is it looks like he’s safeguarding him, ready to reach out if he were to fall.

‘Fuck.’ He exhales through gritted teeth. If he were to fall, let him. He’s gotten up and kept going from worse.   

‘Hey… _Yur_ ’…’ Otabek says after what seems like an eternity, an eternity dyed in amber, and his breath is a ghost of warmth against his lips.

‘Oh, go to hell.’ He whispers back, then laughs – a short, neurotic sound, just out of having nothing else to say, not knowing what to do.

It’s lowkey hilarious how Otabek has to come to his rescue, just like before. This time, ‘rescue’ is the touch of a big, calloused hand, slightly damp against his burning cheek and he shivers at the contrast. Then, the ringing in his ears, the flight of anticipation as he draws even closer, so that his nose rubs against his cheek, up – then down again. It probably looks ridiculous – he’s not a child, for fucks sake, but the tension ebbs away like the tide.

He can feel Otabek exhale into his skin, long and intermittent, and Yuri’s eyes fall shut on reflex. He doesn’t need to look, not with how every other sense seems amplified, not with how his skin tingles.  

It’s not Hasetsu, not Barcelona, it’s a desolate strip of sand miles and miles away from a real coast, but Yuri swears when Otabek kisses him for the first time, he tastes the faintest trace of sea salt on his lips.   

It’s gentle, the slightest brush of lips against his, the barely noticeable tremble of the hand stroking down his cheek.  

‘Yura’ He breathes again, pulling back for a second    ‘Look at me, Yura. This ok?’

‘Go to hell.’ He says, again. He only opens his eyes for long enough to make sure he doesn’t fucking miss and make a fool out of himself before their lips meet again –  closer, messier, needier. Like each quiet sigh is a piece of a year-long burden finally beginning to leave him, like this was supposed to happen ages ago. Like this was something longed for by both of them, not just a ridiculous what if? that Yuri’s imagination fabricated for him.

‘You repeat yourself’ Otabek chuckles at that, breaking the contact for one very long, unfulfilling moment before his mouth is back, granting feather-light kisses on his cheek, along the line of his jaw, and Yuri can feel the other man smiling on his skin.  

‘Whatever.’ Something about all this is morbidly embarrassing, how exposed and vulnerable he is – not before Otabek – before himself,  so he seeks refuge in the crook Otabek’s neck, scoffing somewhere into his shoulder. Another chuckle, and the Kazakh lets him, arms drawn around his shoulder, fingers wandering through his hair, soothing, loving, sweeping away every moment of repressed longing and confusion.  

‘You’ve probably gotten sand in my hair.’ He grumbles, burrowing himself even deeper into Otabek’s shirt, as if this is definitely not the most content he remembers being  since…since for ages, ok?

‘How long?’ Otabek says instead of answering. His voice is slightly muffled, but that’s ok. Being able to hear the faint throb of his heartbeat is more than enough to make up for it. 

‘How long what?’

‘Have you wanted to do that?’

The only reply Altyn gets is an undecipherable noise emitted somewhere into his neck. What’s Yuri supposed to tell him? Ever since you rescued me on your stupid flashy bike all these years ago? Ever since I broke down and cried in front of you and you didn’t make me feel weak for it? Ever since you were the first to fall asleep in a 3am Skype call, and instead of hanging up I stared at your stupid pixelated smile like some creep for a whole extra 5 minutes?    

 ‘I.’ He sighs, then peers up just for a second.

‘Long enough to do this,’ – he reaches for Otabek’s lips again, gentle but just enough to linger, placing all the things he couldn’t make words work for onto another’s skin. ‘To do this and mean it…I think.’

‘Oh.’ A thumb swipes across his cheek, and Altyn nods, slow and content, as if everything had fallen into place.

They sit like this until the stormclouds are rolling in for real. They race towards them, threatening to consume the earliest of stars that speckle the sky above their heads – and this time, there’s too many to count them all.

 

 

 

It rains soon after they’ve passed the road signs, the phosphorous ‘Welcome to Almaty’ reflected back at them. By the time they’re pulling up by Otabek’s apartment block, the colours of the city have all been blurred by a wall of rain.

This is probably the coolest it’s ever been since Yuri got here, and night breathes in through the windows, tearing at the lace curtains and bringing with it the unmistakable freshness only rain bears.

This is probably also the one night where sleeping on the beds would be the more favourable option.

They don’t.

Yuri doesn’t say anything as he drags his mattress to Otabek’s room, eyes averted, cursing under his breath as it gets stuck in the doorway, and then again, louder as the sheet gets caught onto something and needs to be refitted entirely. The Kazakh in question doesn’t say anything either, just looks at him from where he sits on his pile of blankets, cross-legged, and his smile makes it a bit hard to breathe.

Yuri leaves a respectful gap between the mattresses, but it doesn’t matter in the end. Not when the lights are out, and all there’s left is the pitter-patter of rain outside and a strong arm drawn around his waist. Otabek doesn’t pull him any closer, but the presence behind his back is definitely tangible – gentle. Reassuring.

They should uh. Probably talk about the whole kissing and. Holding each other when they go to sleep thing. Cuddling, is that the term for it?

 

Yuri Plisetsky doesn’t _cuddle._

 

He also doesn’t let people in that easily, like they were meant to be there from the very start; he doesn’t admit things like feelings to anyone, not even himself. That it’s taken them this damn long to reach this very moment is living proof of that.

But this it Otabek, with his stupid undercut and his stupid smile; that always let _him_ set the boundaries and never came close to even grazing at them. It’s a little terrifying to think whether he shares Yuri’s degree of _I’m fucked_ , but the kisses, the hands against his skin suggest it’s not impossible. He must have been so very, very patient.

Admitting things - he at least owes him that much in return.

‘I…’ Yuri starts, but his throat is too damn dry and he chokes on unknown words.

‘Hm?’ Otabek resonates behind him. His thumb rubs the tiniest, lightest circles against his ribcage. It’s not helping.   

‘Listen, I…’ He tries again, but it’s. Just not happening. It’s too hard, and for a second he considers panicking, but then Otabek draws closer, face buried in his hair, and all uncertainty melts away.

‘You don’t need to say anything.’ His voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper, but his words are forged of assurance. ‘We can talk tomorrow, or not at all, if that’s what you prefer.’

‘What about you?’ Yuri Plisetsky, caring about what someone else prefers. What has the world come to?

Otabek is smiling – he can tell when yet another kiss is placed onto the back of his neck. Like he was the most worthy relic to be adored in the entire world, the cleanest most polished stretch of ice, the brightest gold medal.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m quite content with everything I‘ve got right now.’ 

Who knew _cuddling_ , of all gross things, could be so wholesome. 

 

 

 

‘Do you think we should get up yet?’

The rain is still going. The stretch of linoleum right beneath the window is wet, and yeah, one of them should probably crawl out of this makeshift pile of bedding and take care of it before it leaks onto the carpets, but it’s so _nice_ and _warm_ as is. Yuri certainly doesn’t fancy sacrificing his spot on Otabek’s shoulder for such trivial matters. Time for tactical distractions.

‘Do you think Yakov will kill me if I ask to train in Almaty this summer? After the rink opens again?’

‘He’ll kill _me_ , if anything. Don’t you think Nikiforov running off across the world was quite enough for the poor man?’

‘Chances are, I won’t get to see you till Telecom after this.’ He tries to not let the thought of saying goodbye again ruin this morning. Tactical distraction: backfired. Couldn’t thoughts of goodbyes and schedules and _responsibilities_ wait for a while?

‘I know Yakov is running another bootcamp in  Piter. Senior pro level inclusive.’

‘What, for real?’

‘You didn’t know? Yura, he’s _your_ coach. It was advertised weeks ago…’

‘Tch. Like I care.’ Why didn’t they mention something to him anyway, him or Lilia?

‘I’ll have a talk with my coach.’

‘Really?’ The implication seems to sink in – that’d explain why Otabek finds himself with a set of arms that definitely wasn’t his own tightening around his neck, a foreign weight knocking the air out of him.

‘Hey now, careful… I can’t promise anything just yet.’  

‘Beka, you’re the best. Like, fuck. Still so much to show you. Do you know how pretty Levashovski gets in autumn? Lilia’s old troupe from Bolshoi is touring…We could go to my very first rink – it’s still there, you know! It’s really awful. The ice is always so wet and bumpy. It’s still the best. _You’re_ the best.’

‘ _Oof_. I definitely cannot promise anything if you strangle me right here on the spot.’

‘No, really, you’re the coolest.’ Yuri is almost purring at this point, limbs draped over Otabek’s intricate cacoon of blankets and sheets in utter content.

‘It won’t be easy,’ The cacoon reminds him. ‘I’d be training most of my free time, too. We’d be on insane schedules.’

‘I’m sure we could find a way. Even if it doesn’t work out,’ – bit of healthy realism in there – ‘we’d still find something.’

Otabek props himself up on one elbow so he can look at him properly. The adrenaline didn’t seem to rid him of sleep like it did for Yuri – he still barely looks awake. His hair stands up at weird angles, all slickness forgotten, stuck to his temple here and there. His eyes are visibly puffy from sleep, and morning stubble frames his face in a way that Yuri isn’t entirely used to.

He’ll work on that.

 

‘We could,’ Beka agrees, and this might be the only time he’s ever heard his voice waver, the faintest tremble creeping in between syllables, like they were something extremely important.

When he leans in to kiss him again, Yuri understands that at times, anything – the open window, the future, even the ice – _anything_ could wait. He lets the tide sweep him, lost in the lips against his, the hands trailing down his neck.

He is the stillness of the sea after the storm has ceased, the faintest caress of water against the sand, the white foam scattered by the wind.

 

He is victorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Small deviations from canon!!! This assumes that Otabek and Yuri meet a little bit more than the day before GPF, and that a little bit more time passes between the Short Program and the Free Skate.  
> I haven’t lived in Russia for 10 years and in Kazakhstan for 12 years please forgive me and let me know if something is super jarring and incorrect, I would hate to be of disrespect.  
> I will sell a small portion of my soul for them to place as Yuri 1st, Yuuri 2nd and Otabek 3rd tomorrow tbh
> 
> Morskaya sol’ (work title) – sea salt (rus)  
> Dedushka/Deda/Ded – grandpa (rus)  
> Piter – slang for St. Petersburg (rus)  
> Dacha (dachi plural) – small country cottage, recreational or for growing things, kinda like a mini-farm(rus)  
> Derevnya – countryside settlement or village; can also be used as a condescending term for somewhere uncivilised/uncultured. (rus)  
> Aje – Grandmother (kz)  
> Kvas - fermented nonalcoholic bev 
> 
> find me [here](http://prismatic0re.tumblr.com/)


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